Directory_and_Chronicle_1925 — Page 808

736

SHANGHAI

A small but well laid-out and admirably kept Public Garden was formed about 1868 on land recovered from the river in front of the British Consulate. It has been considerably extended in area by reclaiming the foreshore, and a further extension of five and a half mow by diverting the Soochow Creek was completed in 1905. A general Public Garden, intended for Chinese, eight mow in extent, by the bank of the Soochow Creek, was opened in December, 1890. A Park measuring 364 ft. by 216 ft. is laid out in Hongkew. The Public Recreation Ground has also been thoroughly drained, turfed and laid out, in spaces not devoted to sport, with flower-beds. A large extent of ground near Jessfield has been converted into a decorative park and botanical garden.

Immense sums have been wasted in various attempts to drain the Settlements, principally from the want of skilled direction; but the great difficulties in this matter arising from the low-lying and level nature of the ground have now been fairly overcome, though very inucli work of this nature has still to be undertaken in the recently-acquired area. The Settlements are well provided with telephonic fire-alarms. The desire of the Municipal Councils to keep the monopoly in their own hands retarded for many years the inauguration of waterworks, but a public company now -furnishes a continuous supply of filtered water at moderate rates, and so successful has it been that the original capital has been more than doubled. The acquisition of this undertaking by the Municipality has been approved in principle. A separate system of waterworks for the French Concession has been inaugurated, and Chinese waterworks, to supply the native city, were completed in September, 1899. The electric light was introduced in 1882, and arc lamps are erected on all the principal thoroughfares and wharves. In 1893 the Municipality purchased the property and business of the Electric Company, but the administration of the Electric Light Department has not given entire satisfaction. The French Municipality has an excellent electric light service, and the native Bund is lighted by a Chinese Electric Light Company.

:

INSTITUTIONS

Among the institutions of the place may be mentioned the Shanghai Volunteer Corps, composed of members of all nationalities, under the command of Col. W. F. L. Gordon, C.M.G., D.S.C. It consists of 95 officers and 1,438 other ranks, made up as follow:- Staff 25, Light Horse 96, Artillery 77, Machine Gun Company 137, Engineer Company 31, "A" Company (British) 70, "B" Company (British) 67, Customs Company 76, American Company 85, Portuguese Company 102, Japanese Company 87, Chinese Company 138, Shanghai Scottish Company 94, Italian Company 35, Reserve 165, Special Reserve (electricity, tramway and telephone sections) 102, Maritime Company 67, Mounted Troop 79. On the declaration of war by China on Germany and Austria-Hungary, the com- panies drawn from the subjects of those countries were disbanded. Originally formed in 1861, the Volunteer Force gradually went to decay, until the fear of attack after the massacre at Tientsin in 1870 caused its revival with considerable vigour. It again dwindled in numbers, but a re-organisation under the late Major Holliday proved successful, and in 1900, during the Boxer crisis, the membership of 300 was more than trebled and included a Naval Company, since disbanded. A separate Company of Volunteers, under the order of the French Consul-General, was formed in May, 1897. The Fire Brigade consisted until 1919 of 42 foreign volunteers under chief officer M. W. Pett, with a paid departmental engineer, and a staff of 187 native assistants, and was pronounced to be one of the most efficient volunteer brigades in the world. In 1919, however, owing to a misunderstanding, the volunteer members tendered their resigna- tions, which were accepted, and as from April the Brigade became a purely professional organisation. Owing to the increased number of fires an independent brigade for the French Settlement was formed in April, 1908. Stimulated by these examples, no doubt, the Shanghai native city fire-brigade was reorganised in 1920. A substantial new building on the Nantao Road was inaugurated as a fire station in December, and modern engines and equipment were purchased by public subscription. There is a Public Health Laboratory at which bacteriological investigations and chemical analyses are carried out, vaccine lymph is prepared, and the Pasteur treatment of rabies under- taken. The Settlements are well provided with hospitals. In addition to the large General Hospital, a four-storied block on the northern bank of the Soochow Creek, to which extensions have been added recently, there is the Victoria Nursing Home. presented by the community as a Jubilee Memorial and enlarged in 1913, with a separate house for maternity cases, and mental wards and an efficient English nursing staff available for outside attendance; and also a large isolation hospital for